I was reading a Tweet by Joe Hill the other day, and he was bragging about revising his novella. . .for the FOURTH time. I was so jealous!

The truth is that there is nothing calm about the revision process because making some changes can be quite agonizing (do you merge these characters? how do you part with lines you love, but know are cliche?), and if I weren't so busy, I would set my work aside and come back to it later. I treat it like a new romance; you're too in love at first to be objective and see flaws, at least for me it is. Also, my time is very limited, so I decided to start revising the novella, then move onto the novel. Plus, I'm not the kind of writer that can work on multiple projects, at least not on the same day. At least not right now. Of course, I also said it would be impossible to get up before 5a.m. and write; I was wrong.

The other potential block is that I'm an English teacher and keep editing the damn story. Ugh, it is such a pain. So, to minimize that, I am going to cut up the sections of the story that have a time shift and read them separately. It's like taking paragraphs apart, instead of seeing the whole essay. I don't know if this will work, but we will see.

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Dr. Jesú Estrada,Pen Name: María J. EstradaChicago, IL

I grew up in the desert, between Yuma and Somerton, AZ, close to the Cocopah Reservation. Because I was ever-bored, I became an avid reader of Spanish comic books or novelas. Then, once I learned how to read in English, I devoured everything in both languages.

I have been writing stories in mis lenguas since I was six years old. My fiction and poetry focus on working class issues, primarily about laborers in the Southwest.

In real life, I am happily married, been so for over ten years and have a fabulous nine-year-old, son, and three-year-old, daughter, who keep me incredibly busy. My husband is heroically supportive and encourages me to follow my literary passions.

All of my degrees, including my Ph.D. from Washington State University are in English, which makes me a big fat English nerd. Currently, I live in Chicago and teach full-time at Harold Washington College to an amazing student population. Of course, one of my favorite classes to teach is Creative Writing, but I love all of my students and all my classes because I teach all the novels and story/poetry collections I want. Lucky me.

(Yeah, sometimes I let my students write non-serious fiction.)

My next book coming out is Not Your Abuelita's Folktales, a Magical Realism collection of short stories for Young Adults.